In an address to the Ukrainian Parliament via video link, UK prime minister Boris Johnson provided details of £300 million more in military aid to be sent to the Eastern European country.
The PM informed Ukrainian MPs that electronic warfare equipment, heavy lift drones, Brimstone anti-ship missiles, Stormer anti-aircraft missiles, GPS jammers and night-vision devices would be sent to the country over the coming weeks.
Also among the latest raft of UK support is a counter-battery radar system which is designed to detect artillery and missiles and pinpoint where they were fired from.
Downing Street has confirmed that 13 steel-plated Toyota Land Cruisers will also be sent to Ukraine following a request from its government. Foreign secretary Liz Truss suggested that the specialist vehicles could be used to help evacuate civilians from bombardment zones and would reach Ukraine within days.
During his address, Johnson told the Ukrainian Parliament: “In January…just before Putin launched his onslaught - we sent you planeloads of anti-tank missiles, the NLAWS which I think have become popular in Kyiv, and we have intensified that vital effort, working with dozens of countries, helping to coordinate this ever- bigger supply line, dispatching thousands of weapons of many kinds, including tanks now and armoured vehicles.
“In the coming weeks, we in the UK will send you Brimstone anti-ship missiles and Stormer anti-aircraft systems.
“We are providing armoured vehicles to evacuate civilians from areas under attack and protect officials – what [Ukrainian president] Volodymyr [Zelensky] mentioned to me in our most recent call - while they maintain critical infrastructure.
“And I can announce today from the UK government a new package of support totalling £300 million, including radars to pinpoint the artillery bombarding your cities, heavy lift drones to supply your forces, and thousands of night vision devices.
“We will carry on supplying Ukraine, alongside your other friends, with weapons, funding and humanitarian aid, until we have achieved our long-term goal, which must be so to fortify Ukraine that no-one will ever dare to attack you again.”
During his speech, Johnson also conceded that the West’s response to Russian aggression in the country had been “too slow” and that western economies “cannot make the same mistake” as they did in 2014, when Russia was allowed to annex the Crimean Peninsula and spark a war in the Donbass region.
Johnson said: “We who are your friends must be humble about what happened in in 2014, because Ukraine was invaded before for the first time, when Crimea was taken from Ukraine and the war in the Donbas began.
“The truth is that we [Ukraine’s allies] were too slow to grasp what was really happening and we collectively failed to impose the sanctions then that we should have put on Vladimir Putin.”
He went on to pay tribute to Ukraine’s armed forces for having stood up to “the myth of Putin’s invisibility” and “written one of the most glorious chapters in military history and in the life of your country.”
Johnson said: “The so-called irresistible force of Putin's war machine has broken on the immoveable object of Ukrainian patriotism and love of country.”
Invoking the words of former UK PM Winston Churchill during World War II, Johnson added: “This is Ukraine’s finest hour, that will be remembered and recounted for generations to come.
“Your children and grandchildren will say that Ukrainians taught the world that the brute force of an aggressor counts for nothing against the moral force of a people determined to be free.”
A proud Johnson also confirmed that Melinda Simmons, the UK ambassador to Ukraine, has made a formal return to Kyiv to reopen the British Embassy.
Speaking to the BBC after arriving back in the Ukrainian capital, Simmons talked up the importance of the Embassy’s return and confirmed that British authorities were working with Ukraine to help gather evidence of alleged war crimes committed by Russia since the start of the invasion.
Simmons has previously called for visa rules around refugees fleeing Ukraine to be temporarily axed in order to help process those fleeing the conflict faster, but in an interview with Good Morning Britain, the PM suggested that the UK still had a responsibility to “protect the system from those who might want to abuse it”.
Johnson also confirmed during the interview that 27,000 Ukrainian refugees had arrived in the UK, out of a total of 86,000 visas granted, conceding that the UK could have acted quicker.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer separately told BBC Radio 4 that refugees needed to be processed “much more quickly” and emphasised that his party supported the continual provision of military support to Ukraine to show a united “stand against Russian aggression”.
Image taken from Wikimedia Commons
